I recently bought a used 2018 F150 with the dreaded 3.5L EcoBoost. The machine is awesome..... for now. Regarding oil changes on this vehicle or any vehicle with an oil life monitoring system, can the system be trusted? Should I continue to change my oil at regular milage determined intervals or utilize the onboard system to let me know when to change my oil?
The oil life monitor is IMHO, at best a guide and not an absolute to go by. It's based on number of factors and then calculated by the computer, but there's no substitute for what you see and smell with your own senses. Check the condition by looking at the dipstick regularly; like once a month or whatever you feel is appropriate interval based on your driving, and change it when you feel it's needed. Keep track of your oil changes and your own data is going to be a better barometer for how long you should between oil changes.
Change the oil at the regular intervals, so every 5,000 miles. I would not go off the oil monitor system - I don’t need technology to tell me when it’s time to change my oil, just like I don’t need the TPMS system to tell me the air in my tires. Changing oil more frequently is cheaper than getting a new engine.
You can go by what the monitor says, or you can go by the owners manual, or by the hours of operation, or by the way the oil looks and smells. Scotty says change it every 3-5,000 miles, synthetic or not, and he says that frequently.
Change the oil at most every 5-6k miles. If its making you go more than that, odds are Ford wants you to buy a 'new' engine from them. Ford doesn't care about their customers enough to put a nice maintenance guide tool without making you bankrupt.
The oil monitor on our Honda worked perfectly fine at around that interval, so thanks Honda. To be completly honest, I don't trust Ford, or for the matter would blindly trust anything.
You should be changing your oil (as you probably know by now) with a 4-5k mile interval, if it says it around there, great, if not, disregard it.
Some manufacturers also have useless oil change intervals in their owners manuals like 10-15k miles. If its the case for you, the monitoring system would probably try its best to reach that miles (because its Ford and they want to destroy your engine so you buy a new one) so in that case disregard both the interval in the manual and the monitoring system. Pretty simple, don't trust it, but use it as a basic guide if it actually has reasonable intervals.
I never trust any of those oil life monitors. You're better off tracking the mileage and changing it based on that. I change mine every 3K miles but I have older vehicles and run conventional oil. I can see where it'd get expensive on a newer car.
Some 3.5 ecoboosts have a turbo. If you have one I’d change a little more frequently like 3-4K. Otherwise 5k is fine. I made mistake buying my wife a new 2014 fusion turbo and it diluted the oil horribly. Third engine by 17k miles. What was Ford’s solution when they installed the third motor? Killed the turbo. Didn’t work at all. Like we wouldn’t notice the slug it became.
